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I'm buying an 800Mhz eMac - need advice!

glossywhite

glossywhite

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 28, 2008
1,120
3
Buying an 800Mhz eMac - is this wise?
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Hi. I have been considering buying an 800Mhz eMac from eBay, but I have heard some discouraging stories about logic board capacitors going bad.

Could someone please put my mind at rest; was it ONLY the 1.25Ghz model eMac that had problematic capacitor syndrome, or did this extend to the 800Mhz eMac as well?.

The spec I am buying is:

800Mhz G4 processor

40Gb IDE hdd

640Mb RAM

~~~ I hear that this model can be overclocked to 1.33Ghz - right? ~~~

CD-ROM (I think, but it's irrelevant as I have an upgrade drive ready for it!)

I am paying £124 which includes shipping, from a bulk refurbishing company. I do NOT want to pay over the odds, and I refuse to be ripped off. If anyone has any suspicions, would you tell me please.

I'm mainly concerned about the capacitors dying on me - nothing else. Thankyou so much!. :)



PS: VERY IMPORTANT -

From what I can gather, ALL 800Mhz eMacs have a 133Mhz system bus - is this correct?.

can this eMac take a 250Gb IDE hard disk, and does the 800Mhz eMac support ATA100?. I forgot to mention this initially, but it is one of THE most important factors in my decision, thanks again.
 
Though eMacs are nice machines, they're not really anymore. If you really want to get something used or refurbished, at LEAST go for a g5 imac.
 
bluedoggiant said:
Though eMacs are nice machines, they're not really anymore. If you really want to get something used or refurbished, at LEAST go for a g5 imac.
Click to expand...

All very well to say that, but I want an eMac, not iMac.. and besides, it comes tomorrow morning via courier! :D.

I don't expect 2008 performance from a 2002-2004 machine; I'm not that naive LOL!. I won't be pushing FCP or CS3 through this, just using it for XCODE development and browsing YouTube etc.

I have asked specific questions - I respect and thank you for your answer, but I didn't ask you to choose the Mac I buy, please don't take offence. I like older Macs and I LOVE the eMac styling. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I am buying it for me. I just need to know some answers to the stated questions, if possible. Thanks mate.
 
Why do you want an eMac so much? I agree with BlueDog on this one.
Anyway, the price is 124quid ~ $250, hmm I guess so. As for the problems with the logic boards you probably won't see any problems until later in the machines life (if any). I'm no expert on the overclocking (www.xlr8yourmac.com) will help with that. Though an 800 MHz machine is already well over 5 years old. You aren't planning on running Leopard are you?
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
Why do you want an eMac so much? I agree with BlueDog on this one.
Anyway, the price is 124quid ~ $250, hmm I guess so. As for the problems with the logic boards you probably won't see any problems until later in the machines life (if any). I'm no expert on the overclocking (www.xlr8yourmac.com) will help with that. Though an 800 MHz machine is already well over 5 years old. You aren't planning on running Leopard are you?
Click to expand...

I'm running Leopard on a 400Mhz Yikes Powermac - I envisage NO problems doing the same with the eMac, with the same 768Mb ram. AS I said, I am not expecting 8 core rendering power of a Mac Pro from this little cutie, just some fun and software dev will be done on her.

Put it this way: I had a Blue G3 iMac last year, running Tiger - these are similair(?) specs, and I found it extremely pleasant, and inherently usable for browsing and general everyday use. I think we expect faster and faster and faster TOO much, and everything else just gets left by the wayside. If your usage/expectations are not massively high, then I cannot see an issue. Aim for the sun, and you will be disappointed... but I'm not aiming for the sun, am I!. I have my Santa Rosa Macbook fully loaded with 4Gb 667 DDR2 for the power hungry stuff; this is just a nice extra to have around, for occasionaly usage.

Why do I like it?... that's personal taste - no accounting for it, I just DO!. :)

I know the cache is lesser than the Powermac. I plan a speed test, and if Leopard proves too slow, then hey I can always default to Tiger. Sooo... back to my questions??.... ATA etc etc. Thanks! :D
 
My old 700mhz would not see a 250GB HD. Perhaps I could have partitioned it, but I just threw in a smaller 160GB UltraATA/100 (148.92GB seen) disk and went my merry way.

There were 3 waves of eMacs. 800mhz came in wave 1 and 2. Maybe if yours is a wave-2, you'll have a different HD experience.

I looked into overclocking. My eyes are just not up to the challenge of dealing with those tiny parts.

If you install a new HD, get a decent optical drive to put in at the same time. No sense opening these up more than necessary.

Good luck with your new eMac!
 
glossywhite said:
I think we expect faster and faster and faster TOO much, and everything else just gets left by the wayside. If your usage/expectations are not massively high, then I cannot see an issue.
Click to expand...

I agree. I've recently picked up some older G3 Macs for different uses. Upgrrade the ram and put in a decent HD and thhere still plenty of goody in these machines.

Posting these over Airport from an iBook Clamshell 466 SE Lime
 
I had a 1.25GHz eMac with a serial number that fell under the extension program... never had to use the program because my capacitors never leaked. I had the machine for 3 years, and to this day my brother still uses it for basic tasks and she runs great. My first Mac, and let me tell you I still miss the machine. They're tanks, and thats what I love about them. The screen is crystal clear, and I love the classic design.

I'm pretty sure the only problem with eMac capacitors were in the 1.25GHz models (the early iMac G5's had the same problem). However, the early eMac models had inverter cable problems, which showed only 3/4 of the display. The problem itself was a simple cable fix, but at the time a huge ordeal. From the model your describing, it sounds like your looking at the May 2003 model (ATI graphics) and they were pretty reliable. Never heard of issues with those machines. I say go for it, I still love mine! :)
 
Mine is the ATI model, yes. Whipped out the 40Gb maxtor drive (ughhh it's worth replacing it just to rid myself of that name, ALONE!!) put in a 250Gb WD ide drive, installed a Liteon 20x dvd+-rw burner (a model tested by xlr8yourmac) and finally, overclocked the G4 to 1.33Ghz - Myyyyyy was that ever fiddly, due to the spare lands on the PCB, having become slightly corroded by the air over the years. Had to scrape the corrosion off with a mini driver (not the Actress! :D) and then tinned them, and bridged appropriately, with a single strand of copper wire.

Running perfectly at *530Mhz* over the stock speed. I ran CPU stress testing software, but NO failures AT ALL!. Finally, I cloned my SR Macbook across to it (yeah - they SAY it won't work.... BAH well it does!!) and it is now setup just sweet!.
 
only eMacs where the logic boards had been produced between end 2003 and end 2004 are effected with the bad cap issue , surprisingly even there had been slipped through some good ones , so its not all that bad , and if it came from a caretaking owner he took advantage of the repair offer from apple back then and got the bad caps replaced under extended warranty ,
but my advise is to get at least the 1ghz education model which came with usb 2.0 insted of the consumer model which only got usb 1.1 , or the 1.25, or the 1.42 model, the later was produced 2005 after the bad cap issue and is trouble free ,usb 2.0 because as its hard to find accessoiries which have firewire nowadays and the ones who have cost significant more , and most really need usb2.0 to function proper , like cameras , or even harddrives , ok you can store things on them with usb 1.1 as they are backwards compatible , but you wont be able to watch a video from the external hdd if its usb 1.1 as its to slow , ok you could always copy it on the internal hdd before watching if you dont mind,

when i decided to buy a Mac i first looked at the iMac g5 ,
but very quickly i decided against it and instead i went of the eMac 1.42 , which came with superdrive , (dual layer dvd writer) and 160 gb 7200rpm harddrive as standard ,and looks far cooler and for the matter of cooling the early iMac g5 had cooling issues means getting hot ,and had bad cap problem too

the eMac on the other hand was build to run 24/7 without overheating and it offers the better screen and speed is not a issue or? the emac 1.42 is fast enough for everyday computing
ok the newest iMac with i7 might be a bit faster , but in my opinion that does not matter , i hate this faster faster faster thing , for me its not the end of the world if i have to wait a couple seconds longer and its all there is in difference a couple seconds not more , just gives you time to fill up your cup of coffee or tea again,so just dont think the eMac is slower , think it gives his owner time to enjoy working
 
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